Interoperability

In October 2015, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology (ONC) issued its Final Version 1.0 report
"Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide
Interoperability Roadmap", frequently referred
to as simply "the Roadmap". The vision described in the Roadmap
includes a health system where:

Individuals are at the center of their care

Providers have a seamless ability to access and use health
information

Health information includes information from many different
sources

Health infomation is longitudinal, rather than just about
episodes of care

Diagnostic tests are not unnecessarily repeated, because test information is available
to providers and patients

In May of 2016, the ONC's Precision Medicine Task
Force recommended the Roadmap should be revised to:

Add information about Precision Medicine,

More fully address patient-generated health data

Consider high-value, non-EHR data sources of patient data, and

Encourage the use of standard Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs) to source data

Moving beyond EHRs as the
sole source of health information - and considering the wider range of
technology applications used by individuals, providers, and researchers
- means dealing with a lot more data. The variety of data sources,
the dynamic nature of how this data is used and interpreted, and the
demand for information to be ever more simple to access and act upon,
means that organizations must find ways to make their systems more
interoperable.

Clearly, work needs to be done - by all stakeholders in the
healthcare ecosystem - to achieve this vision. While progress is
being made, there are still many barriers to delivering the right
information to the right person at the right time. Some of these
barriers are technical, but many involve policy and governance issues,
security issues, and, of course, financial contraints.

The professionals at JCS understand not only the technical challenges
associated with advancing toward true interoperability, but also the
business, organizational, and financial hurdles. We can help your
organization plan and execute both a strategy for pursuing
interoperability, as well as helping you define and execute specific
projects and initiatives to move you ahead. Please
Contact Us to
learn more about how we can help you meet the challenges of
interoperability.

JCS is also a proud and active member of the Healthcare Services
Platform Consortium (HSPC). HSPC is a provider-driven organization
whose goal is to foster a vibrant entrepreneurial community to deliver
the best healthcare solutions quickly, easily, and seamlessly.
Please click here to learn
more about the HSPC.